Four Times Katniss Got Married
by carlaisnt
Summary: And One Time She Didn't. AU. Not strictly fluffy. Multiple pairings.


Four Times Katniss Got Married, and One Time She Didn't

I.

Katniss marries Peeta a week after they move back to District 12. In her Victor's Village house, they sit in the matching plush velvet chairs in front of a fireplace made of brick. Peeta is a whiz at making fires, so she had only collected some kindling and let him build it up quickly. She rubs her finger against the smooth fabric and thinks of Cinna, shivers despite the warmth on her face and feet and hands.

Peeta carefully toasts the bread he made this morning, turns his head to look at her with a sweet smile. He had been pulling it from the oven with gloved hands, turning to deposit it on the counter. She saw him in the window's light, his face so much leaner than when they had first met, his once-soft eyes nearly as haunted as hers, and had said, "Let's get married." He had grinned and dropped the bread. She had laughed, and he had kissed her, and for a moment, all was right.

II.

Caesar Flickerman presides over the elaborate televised ceremony that is Katniss and Peeta's wedding. It takes place in a Capitol ballroom and Katniss recognizes almost none of the brightly-colored faces. In a feat of particular malice, President Snow had invited the Hawthornes. Attendance was mandatory, of course.

With all eyes on her, she watches everyone else. Her mother's pinched face looks on as she performs an unfamiliar waltz with Peeta, handsome in his tuxedo. Prim and Posy dance in circles together, while the boys stuff their mouths with rich food. Katniss smiles before she catches herself. Gale stands to their side, solemn and silent. His hair is growing long again, she notices.

She will learn to love Peeta, she thinks. But Haymitch is right, she doesn't deserve him. It's not herself she feels the most sorrow for. It's Peeta, knowing she may never love him the way he loves her, and Gale, knowing they will never have what they both thought was certain. She is getting better at this lying thing, though; she does not break her grin when they announce the happy couple on live broadcast. Finnick Odair graciously offers to kiss the bride.

Katniss and Peeta retire to a suite so high she expects to find herself in a mineshaft buried miles deep within the earth when the elevator doors open. Instead there is a half-moon view of the Capitol in all its sparkling glory. She prays there are no cameras planted, waiting to catch their wedded bliss. Katniss pulls slippery-soft sheets up over her shoulders and Peeta holds her, kindly pretends he is asleep when she shadow-walks to the bathroom to cry.

III.

Gale is twenty, Katniss eighteen. Her mother has woven her hair full of flowers and she stands in front of her father's old shaving mirror to admire it. It looks like something Prim would have worn, not her. But she smiles at her mother and pulls her close, her hunter's hands rough on her mother's delicate shoulders. She turns to Madge and hugs her too, and Madge giggles and presents a golden pin with a Mockingjay on it.

Katniss and Gale have a beautiful reception for most of the town, even though they could hardly afford it. Gale works in the mines now, and she will have to too, and soon. But everyone had offered something when they heard of the engagement, though they had insisted on repayment. Katniss and Gale had felled a deer the Sunday before and Greasy Sae has made a feast of it. The baker generously traded several loaves of bread for squirrels and, with a wistful smile, even slipped Katniss a small cake decorated with tiny flowers. Katniss knows that these gifts are because everyone in town had loved Prim, that this is what they would have offered her and that she would have accepted them much more graciously, with a tender smile and an embrace and the perfect soft words of appreciation.

They dance and drink wine brought by the only Victor District 12 has seen in years, Haymitch Abernathy. Katniss sings and her mother tears up, and Katniss does not dare meet her eyes. She looks at Gale and they share a smile made of secrets. Tonight, Gale will leave his coin pouch in the drawer of his mother's sewing table. Katniss will polish her father's mirror and kiss her mother's forehead as she goes to sleep. Under the stars and away from the black dust cloud, they will toast their bread and make love for the first time. Blackberries smeared on their lips, they will run and laugh and kiss and know that they are free.

IV.

In Four, engaged couples weave a fishing net together. It takes months and months, and when they're finished, if they still want to get married, they cast out together. It's considered good luck if they catch enough to feed the village.

Finnick and Katniss love each other as much as they possibly can, two bodies professionally polished smooth to hide the scar tissue in their souls. It sneaks up on them, the way Finnick once said Annie had. There had been no question; there was no one else left. Still. Finnick says they shouldn't feel guilty for being happy. He calls it Survivor's Guilt; Haymitch would call it a good reason to drink.

Katniss is not one to play what if, but. What if she had committed to Gale, would he still have volunteered to rescue Peeta only to die for a boy whose mind and heart were also broken? What if she had not been so angry with Defective Peeta on that last mission in the Capitol, would she have been able to pull him out of the muttations' claws? Would she have made a choice? Would Prim be with her? Annie, who she'd hardly known at all really, would Finnick's hand still clutch hers at night? Would everyone she knew and loved (or liked, or even just tolerated) still be dead? Would she? Real or Not Real: she envies the dead their togetherness, their dreadful, merciful silence. Real or Not Real: their voices scream in her head; their deaths are hers to bear alone. A deep breath, she is not alone. She still loves, and is loved in return. This is her home now.

In the mornings they swim together. Finnick wears a bathing suit for her benefit and complains regularly of the drag. She blushes. She floats on her back and stares at the sun, combs her fingers through the waves. Her eyes never get used to the sting of saltwater. Finnick punctuates long languid strokes with bursting sprints. He swims out as far as the eye can see, dives deep for minutes on end. Once he disappears from her view for too long; she panics, lets out piercing, choking shrieks until he resurfaces next to her, pulls her into his arms, shushes her like a child. He strokes dark hair, rests his chin on her head and watches the seabirds scatter. He never swims out of her sight again.

Katniss' loops are loose and undisciplined and it takes her twice as long to complete a section. Finnick's dimples show when he grins, takes her hands in his much larger ones and shows her once again how to knot the hitch. He rubs lotion on her tired and tender fingers, no longer calloused from her bow. Katniss returns his smile gratefully, for once forgets, _what if._

V.

Katniss returns to District 12 after the assassination of President Coin. She half expects to be arrested and executed for her treason but she instead is rewarded with a badge for bravery and a pension for military duty. She would sooner welcome the brand of murderer.

She rebuilds the house her parents had built when they first married. When her mother's hands become arthritic, she teaches Katniss how to heal. Though she never had the touch or stomach of a healer, she knows the plant book by heart, and she keeps adding to it. She makes medicines whenever the District 13 pills are not available, which is often. She trades at the open-air market now that the Hob is demolished. Peeta brings bread once a week and she gives him rosemary, thyme, sunflower seeds. She makes small talk with those she has known all her life and with the survivors she had not cared to know before. It is a life, a good life. It's not starting over, it feels like rebuilding.

Rory, Vick, and Posy visit regularly. At first it's hard to look Rory in the eye, but she comes to enjoy her time with the siblings. She teaches Posy the plants, and eventually the songs her father taught her as a girl. Posy is dark-haired like her, but she has a certain sweetness and intelligence. When Katniss starts getting grey hairs in her long braid and Posy is a bright-eyed teenager, she asks to learn to hunt. Though there is no longer an electric fence surrounding District 12, Katniss has not been beyond the meadow since before the second Games.

It takes Katniss three tries to string her bow the first time, and even then she scares away any prey with clunking steps through the brush. Posy sets a snare with such concentration that Katniss can't bear to tell her what she did wrong. By the end of the day she is empty-handed, frustrated, and sweating; Posy has made her a dandelion wreath while she sunbathes on a rock. Katniss laughs until her belly aches.


End file.
